Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 158829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 794(@200wpm)___ 635(@250wpm)___ 529(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 158829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 794(@200wpm)___ 635(@250wpm)___ 529(@300wpm)
8
Because I’m The Boss (Brock)
I have most of the marketing team assembled for the morning executive meeting including Piper and her friend Jennifer Landers.
Her email this morning named one condition—moving Jennifer into the same role, and dammit, I agreed.
She keeps her friends close, I suppose.
Though I wonder if bringing them into the meeting this soon was a bad idea.
The shape of Piper Renee’s mouth is so hellishly intoxicating I can’t focus on anything else.
And it’s not just her lips that have my attention.
It’s the memory, the taste, the way they burned against mine.
Knowing her whip of a tongue once played in my mouth while her nails raked my hair.
We kissed each other like starving animals who couldn’t get enough.
That’s why I laid down the law—for my benefit and hers.
Rules are rules and 'no fraternization' might as well be a commandment here. I never meant it as some backhanded slap to her pride.
“...but that’s not a strategy. Dropping twenty articles with all the keywords your heart desires isn’t going to accomplish much against a post that already has ten thousand views. You have to start getting engagement to feed the algorithm. The post with all the views is basically injecting steroids into the algo at this point.” Miss Renee’s words bring me back to the discussion.
“Forget the articles then. We can focus on video content instead,” Keenan says.
“Not a terrible idea, but I’m not sure it changes anything. Videos get way more interaction than any text-based content these days. But it still doesn’t solve the root problem,” she says.
“Which is...?” Keenan waits expectantly.
“Your problem isn’t the content, necessarily. It’s getting it seen by the right people.”
“We spend astronomical amounts on advertising every month,” Keenan says, looking at me to weigh in. “That must do something, right?”
I nod slowly.
“And how’s that working out?” she throws back.
I have to suppress a chuckle.
I forgot how hard to impress she can be, and it isn’t fair leaving Keenan to make excuses.
“Why don’t you get to the point, Miss Renee? What are you suggesting?” I bite off.
Her face falls. “I’m not sure just yet. I need more info to come up with anything really useful. But organic marketing does prompt more engagement than paid ads, and with platforms like TikTok taking over, organic engagement is king.”
“We’re trying. We’ve been working on expanding our organic reach and getting more influencers involved, but so far it’s been a slog,” Keenan says with a sigh.
“Or you’re letting the Chicago critic who turned us down stick in your head.” I say, holding Keenan’s gaze.
He doesn’t answer.
“Maybe we could look at changing up our paid ads?” Jenn suggests.
“We review ad spend allocation and its efficiency every few weeks,” I tell her, looking at Robert next. “How are the changes to the rewards program coming?”
“We implemented a new pilot program at the Vegas resort. We’ve seen a small spike in repeat rebookings, and dollars spent per booking have notched up ten percent since we started it. We’d like to study it for another two months to be sure before we do a partial rollout everywhere else. With your approval, of course,” he adds with a nervous grin.
“Finally some good news. Make it happen,” I tell him.
One glance across the table shows me Miss Renee glaring.
Better to have her disapprove of my style than the message itself.
“There’s still the problem Keenan touched on. I’m having a hard time attracting top influencers, which would be the easiest way to promote the program once it goes wide,” Robert says.
Fuck.
Again with the influencers.
“What can we do? Is there any sense we’re not tainted goods from those damned reviews?” I snap.
“It’s a challenge,” he says.
“Bull. There’s no way that many people are having appalling experiences at our hotels. I don’t believe it for a second. Nothing’s changed in our internal customer feedback.”
On the contrary, we’ve had the most highly rated resorts in the world for forty years. Our satisfaction surveys aren’t mirroring the same woes as the shit posted online.
I couldn’t have fucked up badly enough to undo all of that in the past two years if I’d wanted to.
“Clue me in. If people aren’t having bad experiences, then why are they posting bad reviews? You think they’re fake?” Piper asks. “Some of those reviews seem pretty detailed.”
“That’s the million-dollar question, Miss Renee,” I say, turning in my chair. “Someone’s getting paid to post them. That’s what my gut screams.”
“What? Who? When I have thoughts like that about a video getting troll comments, I always ask the same questions. And if there’s no easy answer, then I know it’s on me to improve my content,” she says with a self-assured smile.
Of course she does.
She’s sunshine and jellybeans and thousands of happy travelers eat from the palm of her hand like the birds she adores. I noticed the small silver hummingbird necklace around her neck today.